AES E-Library

AES E-Library

3-D Sound Synthesis of a Honeybee Swarm

Honeybee swarms are characterized by their buzzing sound which can be very impressive close to a hive. We present two techniques for real-time sound synthesis of swarming honeybees in a 3D multichannel setting. Both techniques are based on a source-filter model using a sawtooth oscillator and an all-pole equalization filter. The synthesis is controlled by the motion of the swarm, which is modeled in two different ways: as a set of coupled individual bees or with a swarming algorithm. The synthesized sound can be spatialized using the location information generated by the model. The proposed methods are capable of producing a realistic honeybee swarm effect to be used in, e.g., virtual reality applications.